The Ice Harvest movie review
John Cusack as a neo-noir antihero? Hell yes: he’s been building to this his whole career. And now he’s done it, yanked the rug out from under us and left us to wonder just how far over he’s gone.
Christmas/holiday
The Star Wars Holiday Special (review)
Here’s what you have to do in order to survive *The Star Wars Holiday Special*: Don’t watch it. If you must, then 1) Have alcohol or some other inebriating substance close to hand — a rock to bang against your skull will do in a pinch. And 2) Remember that your tender 10-year-old self probably witnessed this atrocity the one time it aired on TV to unsuspecting, nay, *eager* audiences, and suffered such psychological trauma that your brain blocked off the memory in order to spare you further harm; know that you may suddenly experience violent flashbacks to Christmas 1978 as that mental wound is viciously reopened.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year (review)
Are they puppets? Are they some sort of clay-animated figures? Or are they some kind of beasts hitherto unknown and the likes of which the world has not seen again since? It doesn’t matter. The creatures Rankin & Bass brought to life in their animated holiday specials are so much a part of my psyche that I no more think about their nature than I pause to consider what constitutes the air I breathe.
The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (review)
This CBS TV movie, charming and heartwarming Christmas hokum personified, introduces us to the Walton family, those hearty folk of good pioneer stock soldiering their way through the Great Depression, poor but happy. It’s Christmas Eve, 1933, and Momma (Patricia Neal) and the passel of kids await the return of Father, who’s off working miles … more…
The Gift of Love (review)
As excruciating as this film is, it’s almost a pleasure to be reminded that vapid pop stars who think they can act are not a particular failing of the MTV era. Why, a quarter of a century ago, Marie Osmond pouted and sulked her way through this 1978 TV movie as Beth Atherton, an orphan … more…
Christmas Carol: The Movie (review)
The voice cast of this animated British kid flick is an Anglophile’s dream: Kate Winslet (Finding Neverland), Michael Gambon (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), Juliet Stevenson (Being Julia), Rhys Ifans (Vanity Fair), Jane Horrocks (Chicken Run). Pity that not a one of them distinguishes him- or herself — the voice performances are so … more…
Pieces of April and National Lampoon’s Thanksgiving Family Reunion movies review: family affairs
Family: It’s what Thanksgiving is all about, isn’t it? I mean, besides the waiting for the arrival of Santa to wrap up the Macy’s parade in the morning and the gorging in the afternoon and the massive cleanup in the evening.
Noel (review)
Unfortunately, the most remarkable thing about Noel is its near-simultaneous triple-headed distribution: a limited theatrical release starting today, a debut on cable network TNT on November 28, and a disposable-DVD release on November 17, in a new format called Flexplay, which costs about the same as a rental but gives you only 48 hours of … more…
The Polar Express (review)
If we’re honest about it, there’s something kinda creepy about the jolly man who lives at the North Pole, isn’t there? He sees you when you’re sleeping? Ewww. Slave armies of happy elves mass-producing Bratz and Dancing Elmos? Weird. Christmas stories tend to gloss over these rather vile underpinnings, and rightly so — the little ‘uns should go to bed on Christmas Eve with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, not paranoid nightmares about a big fat dude breaking and entering and helping himself to milk and cookies.
Surviving Christmas (review)
The annual holiday assault has arrived, and don’t think “assault” isn’t the right word; this is but the first dementedly wrongheaded satire on family and togetherness we’re in for this season. Ben Affleck (Jersey Girl) gets whacked in the noggin with a snow shovel and, in this neurologically altered state, decides to hire the awful … more…
